


The Fundamental Things Apply

by Thistlerose



Category: Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons)
Genre: Bickering, F/M, Post-Series, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 07:22:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2842865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Well,</i> thought Shayera, <i>it's not Christmas if I'm not getting thrown out of some dive.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fundamental Things Apply

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



_Well,_ thought Shayera, _it's not Christmas if I'm not getting thrown out of some dive._ She kicked at the legs of the bouncer, who had to be at least three-quarters gorilla, but only succeeded in stubbing her own toes. With his powerfully muscled arms wrapped tight around her upper body - including her wings - she couldn't raise her mace to strike at him. _Oh, well,_ she thought as the bouncer kicked the back door open and lifted her above his head. It had been fun while it lasted. 

A second later, she was airborne. With no time to spread her wings, she tumbled head-over-heels through the frigid night air, landing on her back in a deep snowbank, with the breath knocked out of her. Limbs splayed, feathers all askew, she lay there blinking dazedly up at the cloud-choked sky, and hoped that John was faring better. 

It was quiet for about a minute and a half. Then the door to bar burst open again and John landed in the snow beside her with a thud and a grunt.

The bar door slammed shut.

"Ow," said John pointedly, as if this were somehow all Shayera's fault.

Okay, maybe it was. She'd thrown the first punch, after all. (At the lizard-woman in the brass-studded armor, who kept flicking her forked tongue lasciviously in their direction.) But she'd given John what she considered to be ample warning, and all he'd done was raise his eyebrows, which she'd interpreted to mean _Be my guest._ And if she'd thrown the first punch, he'd definitely thrown the third (after the lizard-woman) so he was by no means an innocent bystander.

Shayera pushed herself up and started brushing the snow off her arms and wings.

As John rose, he plucked something up off the ground and held it out to her. It was a single gray feather. "You dropped something," he drawled, twirling it between his fingers.

"Keep it," she said dryly. "I have more."

With a shrug, John lowered his hand. "So, where to now?" he asked.

"Home, I guess. I don't have any plans. You?"

"Nope. Wanna walk?"

"To where?"

John gestured expansively at the snow-covered landscape. "Anywhere. Pick a direction."

She looked at him curiously, but either he was keeping his expression deliberately bland, or else she had lost the ability to read him in the years since their breakup. "We don't have to have a meaningful conversation, do we?" she asked, eyes narrowed.

"God, I hope not. C'mon, a walk will cool you down."

"Lying in a snowdrift cooled me down."

He smiled at her enigmatically, then shoved his hands in his pockets and started walking. Shayera cast a backward glance at the bar door; she didn't like walking away from a fight and had half a mind to charge back in there, three-quarter gorilla bouncers be damned. But she doubted that John would go with her, and fighting alone suddenly seemed a little pathetic. So, with nothing better to do, she turned and hurried after him.

He'd used the power of his ring to make snowshoes, so he'd actually gotten a decent head start on her. By the time she caught up with him, the sounds of the bar were muted, and she could not longer see the lights from the other buildings - a gas station with an attached convenient store, a sleazy-looking motel - out of the corner of her eye. As they left the highway behind them, the white hills stretched languidly into the distance under a steel-colored sky. Apart from the soft crunch of the snow beneath their feet and the occasional sigh of the wind, it was very quiet.

How amazing was it, Shayera mused, that she and John had ended up at the same dive on Christmas night? And such an out-of-the-way place. She hadn't had time to think about it before the fighting started, and he'd acted surprised to see her - actually tossing out that line from that old movie he loved, something about all the gin joints in the world or whatever - but he must have found her using the Watchtower's monitors and followed her. Sneaky. And why? Had he been worried about her? He knew how fond she was of brawling, but come on. He knew damn well she could handle herself. She could have bested the lizard-woman if she hadn't been looking out for him.

She should have been angry. She wasn't, though, and it surprised her. Maybe, she thought, she'd gotten it all out of her system retroactively in the barfight. Or maybe it was the minutes she'd spent lying supine in the snow. Maybe it was the crisp night air or the fact that it was Christmas, though she had no particular attachment to the holiday.

In any case…

She slid him a glance, but his eyes were fixed on the unfolding landscape and he didn't seem to notice.

In any case, Shayera thought, she was glad that he was here. She had a sudden urge to link her arm with his, for warmth and for old time's sake. But she suppressed it. How long had it been since his breakup with Mari? (Wally had informed her, without any prompting or preamble. Just a quick "for-your-information" before he left for the holidays.) Not that long, she imagined. And just because he was free, it didn't follow that she had any claim on him. Despite what she knew of the future. Or one _possible_ future, according to Batman.

Shayera sighed. It came out sounding more plaintive than she'd intended, and to her annoyance, John's lips crimped in a slight smile. "What's the matter?" he teased. "Too cold for you?"

"I'm fine," she muttered. Wishing she'd brought warmer gloves, she blew into her hands then rubbed them together determinedly.

John stopped walking. "We don't have to go anywhere, you know. It was just an idea. We can go back to the Watchtower, if you want."

"I wasn't complaining," she said. "I was just … _where_ exactly are we going?"

"Does it matter?"

"No. I don't know. I like to know where I'm going. I like to have plans."

"I know."

The corner of his mouth still quirked upward, but his tone was neutral, almost carefully so, and she still couldn't read much of anything in his eyes. She wanted to stamp her foot in frustration. "You always do this," she said. "You always--"

"What?" Now there was a challenge in his tone.

"You always mess things up. My plans, I mean. You always…" She raked her fingers through her hair.

The glowing green snowshoes disappeared. John withdrew his hands from his pockets and folded his arms over his chest. He was no longer smiling, but he didn't look grim. Just curious. "What _was_ your plan tonight? Which I so thoughtlessly 'messed up'?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters to me," said John. Now it was curiosity mixed with - she wasn't sure. Concern? A little of that, maybe. And something else.

Shayera shrugged it aside. Placing her hands on her hips she glared up at him through the cold, dark air. "Because of our destiny?" she said in an acid tone. "Because I might someday bear your son?"

Anger kindled in his green eyes. So she could still provoke him. That was good, she supposed, though she wasn't sure why. She'd used volatility to hide her growing attraction to him before, and look where it had gotten her.

"Of course not," John said in a hushed, heated tone. "It's because I care about _you_ , Shayera Hol." The fight went out of him abruptly; he didn't uncross his arms, but his shoulders sagged. Slanting his gaze at the seemingly endless rows of snow-covered hills, he added, "Always have."

"Oh." It was barely a sound. Suddenly she felt very small, a tiny figure stuck between the vast whiteness at her feet and the endless black above her. It didn't make sense: not what he'd said, but the way it made her feel. She knew, of course. Mari had told her that John still had feelings for her, not long after she'd returned to the Justice League. John himself had told her that he loved her - and then in the next breath informed her that he was staying with Mari.

By now, she should be used to hearing those words.

But she wasn't.

As he started to turn away, she grabbed his sleeve. "What do you want from me?" she demanded. "Don't leave me in limbo; it's not fair."

He looked down at her, and though his lips moved slightly, he didn't speak. His brow creased, and it seemed to her that he was struggling with something. His moral code, Shayera thought sourly. He wanted her, but after all they'd been through, and so soon after his breakup with Mari - though she honestly didn't know how long ago that had taken place - it probably felt wrong.

While she was trying to decide if she cared about that at all, John lifted a hand and gently brushed a few strands of hair away from her face. He still had that strange look of deep concentration … but now he was beginning to lean toward her hesitantly and his fingertips were on her cheek, drawing chills across her skin.

Knowing that it was probably wrong and definitely stupid, but finding that she couldn't bring herself to care after all, Shayera curled her fingers tightly around the fold of his sleeve and, tugging him closer, lifted her mouth to his. As kisses went, it was relatively chaste. Their lips, cold and roughened by the night air, did little more than brush. But their breaths met and mingled, and raising his other hand, John captured Shayera's face and the warmth between them.

For several long moments they stood there, his hands in her hair, their foreheads touching: two insignificantly small figures in that stark landscape. The occasional flicker of his lashes felt like snowflakes glancing off her skin; she shivered, but she didn't pull away from him.

Finally she murmured, "Thank you for coming to find me."

"For messing up your plans, you mean?" His tone held a teasing note.

She laughed softly, ruefully. "Forget what I said. I mean, what I asked - about what you want from me. I forgot I said no meaningful conversations."

"Oh, I know what I want," John said, gathering her closer so that her chin was practically inside the unbuttoned collar of his jacket, and she could feel the hitch of his breath. "If it's what you want, then I don't think it requires conversation."

Turning her face so that her cheek rested against his chest, she wrapped her arms around him. "Let's go somewhere warm," she said.

12/24/2014


End file.
